He lunged faster than I could blink. Starlight rippled through the suffocating smoke as his magnificent form shot across the room in darkness. I watched my mate with glorious pride as he came upon Amarantha, claws at the ready. With one quick swipe, blood oozed from her once flawless immortal face.
Her snarl snapped like a panther's, feline and visceral, as she tossed him aside with powerful, unseen magic from the flick of her wrist. He fell flat on the foggy ground, but immediately peeled himself up to launch at her once again.
I felt my growls bellowing in the pit that was becoming of my chest. My body begged to join my mate but some part of me knew that the Amulet of Storms was still growing its dark power around my throat. Its pulse had become my pulse, its bleating presence was now my presence. My magic clouded the room until the crowd disappeared in opaque fog, its whirling blackness a hurricane between myself and my mate in his battle.
"Oh, sweet, Rhysand," Amarantha cackled. "How rude of you not to have introduced me to your friends sooner." He roared at her before slashing at her gown with his claws.
His inner circle was still knelt before me. I pressed against the magic of the amulet to drag myself to them. I looked to their bondage, ready to snip the ash cords with mist, when a figure appeared. Stepping through Mor and Azriel, the outline of a tall fae male came into my view with long golden hair whipping around his face in the dark winds.
"Feyre, let's go," Tamlin said, his hand out for me, ready to whisk me away.
Somewhere I had once possessed humanity. Somewhere I had mercy and empathy. But now… Now I had smoke and mist. I had fury and magic. I had a bond screaming with the rage of my warring mate, fighting for my life. Now I had this blind male standing in the way of my mate, of my family, of our victory - our freedom - and my kill.
"Feyre," he urged me.
I felt the tickle of icy black mist climb through my lungs as I breathed it to life. Death poured from my lips, darker than smoke, darker than night, infinite. It wove like a cunning serpent, its prey predetermined. Tamlin didn't see it. He didn't move. He couldn't see through the smoke: through the storm.
Blue lightning cracked through the throne room as another roar from Rhysand reached my ears. My nostrils flared just as my death's serpent reached Tamlin. It slithered over his shoulder and wound around his chest in a foggy outline, slinking to his throat before it formed the true face of an asp. With one quick strike it tore its fangs into Tamlin's neck, ripping open his flesh and crawling inside. The High Lord of the Spring Court's face was frozen on me, his hand still outstretched. His skin turned pale, before fading into black and then into dust.
Then Tamlin was gone.
I listened to the amulet as its power buzzed through my veins. I listened to it leading me as I clenched my fist and the bonds that held the three on the ground turned to mist before they disappeared altogether. Cassian and Azriel jumped to life, turning to join Rhysand. Mor gaped at me. I couldn't imagine what I looked like anymore. I felt as if I were made of smoke. There was no body left of me. Was I even Feyre anymore?
But instead of saying anything, she simply sniffed the air, staring at the Amulet of Storms with wide eyes, before turning to join the melee.
I looked down and felt my stomach churn. The stone of raging midnight waters had burned itself into my chest, melting away my skin and muscle like it was nothing more than a frozen pond. The smell of burning flesh overwhelmed me. More than half of the stone had burned through my breastplate, bone now lining the troubled gem. Somewhere in my mind I remembered the agony. I remembered this happening. I remembered feeling this pain.
But now I felt no such thing.
I turned to Amarantha who was toying with my mate and his companions, and I let my glassy sight cover with black mist. My pulse was a song of wild thrumming, laced with my black breath steeling itself from my lips as it searched for her. My magic begged for release, and I let it take over. I let it take my body. I let it have me.
The Faerie Queen felt my presence. If she cared that I'd ignored her final task and freed the Night Court fae, she didn't show it. With a twitch of her lip, she dropped my mate and his court to the ground. The first drops of his blood I'd ever seen fell from Rhysand's temple as he connected with hard stone. His night shrunk around him, bearing closer to his skin.
"Do you really think you can defeat me with only a necklace?" Amarantha mocked me, padding my way, turning her back on Rhysand with such carelessness. My vision burned. "I can't wait to have you and Rhysand at my mercy. Think of the centuries of torture I can offer to mates." I felt my shoulders fall back, my chin tilt, my eyes closed. Magic sung in my blood. "I could build you a cage in my room to watch…"
I felt the stone searing into my flesh, my bone, my heart.
I breathed death.
The dark magic flew in slippery tendrils to surround Amarantha, but she did not balk. She took strong, steady steps into the fog that surrounded me.
"If you think your magic show is anything compared to my power, you are sorely mistaken, girl."
Beyond the mist, beyond the black and the blood, beyond the death and the fear, my voice was somehow still my voice. "If you think you are ever touching my mate again, you are sorely mistaken, bitch."
She flung her hands to my neck and I pulled on all the magic I could muster, sending the crackling blue lightning for her heart - smoke seeping into her mouth, her eyes, her ears, her pores.
But before I could see if she paled like Tamlin, or crumbled just as he did, I heard the quick snap of my spine beneath her touch.
I went numb.
I collapsed to the floor, my body was gone. I felt nothing for eternal seconds. The black evaporated all over the room. The crowd of fae were silent, their fear humming in their quick heartbeats. They fumbled amongst each other - adjusting to the bright light without my smoke. Amarantha howled in laughter above me.
"Feyre!" Rhysand roared.
"Fool." Amarantha turned toward him. "You think she was worthy of you? A High Lord? You think that mortal girl deserved anything at all?"
Rhysand just yelled my name again.
I failed him. I had failed him.
My skin prickled beneath my neck.
I should have stopped her. I should have saved him.
He broke her hold, leaving the others on the ground as he launched himself at her again, swift as shadow. She merely lifted a hand and he was blasted back down by a wall of light.
Warmth encroached on the cool lifelessness of my fingertips as I lay on my back watching my mate hit the ground and rise once more. He lunged for her again with his beastly talons. He slammed into the invisible wall Amarantha had raised around herself, and sensation returned to my chest.
The sensation of agonizing pain.
The ancient chain around my neck was empty. The stone was gone, buried inside my exposed heart.
One by one, as if a hand were shoving them in, his talons pushed back into his skin, leaving blood in their wake. He swore, low and vicious. "You were planning this all along," she seethed at Rhysand. Her magic hit him again - so hard that his head cracked against stone. No one made a move to help him. His friends were trapped beneath a wall of magic. And I…
I was stuck.
She struck him once more with her power. The red marble splintered where he hit it, spiderwebbing toward me. With wave after wave she hit him. Rhys groaned.
My neck was thrashing with pain as my nerves reawoken.
Rhysand's arms buckled as he fought to rise, and blood dripped from his nose, splattering on the marble. His eyes met mine.
Our bond went taut.
And then I realized, looking into his wide, frightened eyes that I was dead. When he looked at me - he saw me dead.
My hair grew damp against my ear and I looked down, my blood was tinged with black tar as it poured from my open mouth.
Amarantha had snapped my neck.
I was dead.
But I was most certainly not dead. I felt my dark pulse growing, kindling like a winter fire within me.
The Amulet of Storms.
It was inside of me - in my heart - pumping my blood with black magic.
"Stop," I breathed, blood still draining from my mouth as I strained to rise. My head was still turned unnaturally to the side.
Amarantha stopped short. "You piece of mortal filth," she fumed, turning back to me. I pulled myself up to a knee before she was there, kicking straight into my stomach. I went flying, black blood painting the floor.
But it did not matter. I felt the magic returning, calling to my new blood.
With a deep, twisted breath I stood on my feet. Before I could take the time to cringe, I reached for my head with both hands, one on either side of my skull, and jerked it back into place with an earth shattering crack. Icy mist flared through my muscles, filling my body with potent energy. I felt stronger, quicker, secure.
Amarantha was on me in a second. With a bony hand she reached straight for the gaping hole in my chest where blood now ran black as it flowed down my mostly naked body. But as soon as her skin touched the Amulet of Storms where what was left of my heart still sat, she froze, her face inches from mine. Vile loathing smeared across her face.
I let every bit of hate and malice for the crimes she'd committed to my mate devour my mind as I leaned my face into hers. She bared her teeth at me before I summoned all the dark magic at my mercy into a single breath of sickening sweet mist. She breathed it in between snarls of rage that boomed through the hall.
Her hand fell at her side just as her magic fell around me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mor leap up followed by the Night Court males to run to Rhysand's aid. Amarantha's skin paled before a single drop of blood fell from her nose.
"What did you do," she choked out, her voice less than a breath.
The dark wetness blossomed from her ears and her eyes tinged red. Blood poured from her colorless face. I met her eyes until I watched as every speck of her lifeforce drained from her body, deepening from red to black until the tar of her blood ate at her own flesh.
And then she was nothing but ash.
I fell to my knees in her black dust, unable to stand any longer. My ribs shook with pain and for a moment I thought maybe I would turn to soot too.
"Feyre," I heard. He jerked on our bond, pulling my consciousness to him. Rhysand. Rhysand, my mate. He was here.
"I'm so sorry," I tried to whisper.
I felt his hands on my skin and his fear through the bond as he beheld what was left of me. He wrapped me up, careful not to touch my open chest.
"No, Feyre," he soothed. "You saved us… You saved us all."
I felt my head nodding. He was nothing but a shadow in my black, foggy vision. He held me now. No part of me was touching the ground. Tired. I was so tired.
"Let's go home."
Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading and waiting patiently for this chapter! Not to mention all the REVIEWS! OMG I HIT 100! Thank you thank you thank you for the support here and also on Instagram at "courtofnightandshadows" where I've gotten lots of comments and DMs with so much love and excellent questions. Please feel free to hmu with headcanons or general fan-girling :P
As for this chapter, it was actually a little melancholy for me to write because for me its as if Feyre is losing herself a bit and its sad to see her struggle through it... But anyway.
Please review! I'm also considering accepting one-shot ideas by request and posting them in a new story on fanfic, so if you have any scene you'd like to see written I'd love to do that for you! Send me a PM or review here, or DM me on Instagram :D
Thank you again for all the love! I hope to make you all proud and never let you guys down *blushes, hides face, crawls away*